Among the issues in managing a large number of assets are the issues of how to efficiently maintain the asset management database containing the information and how to monitor the status of the assets.

Asset Information Manager allows you to use Windows Task Scheduler to maintain the asset management database containing the asset information as well as monitor asset statuses. Specified processing is executed automatically by tasks at specified dates and times. This reduces the workload on asset managers to maintain the database and monitor managed information.

Furthermore, by using the Asset Information Synchronous Service provided by Asset Information Manager to monitor the inventory information collected by JP1/Software Distribution, JP1/Software Distribution updates can be applied in real time to the asset management database.

The figure below shows the concept of maintaining the asset management database and monitoring operating statuses.

Figure 1-5 Concept of using tasks to update and monitor data in the asset management database

Database maintenance

Asset Information Manager allows you to effectively use database capacity while maintaining the integrity of data in the asset management database by also updating information related to the information being updated by Asset Information Manager and removing unnecessary information.

You can also register and periodically update information from linked products in the asset management databases based on node information collected by HP NNM Version 7.5 or earlier.

For inventory information collected by JP1/Software Distribution, you can choose between using a service to perform monitoring and updating in real time, or using a task to perform periodic updates.

Monitoring of operating statuses

You can periodically check for contracts whose expiration dates are getting close, and notify an asset manager by email. This informs the asset manager about contracts that are about to expire, so that they can be renewed in a timely manner.

You can also periodically total the usage statuses of software licenses, and provide an email notification if an installation exceeds the number of owned licenses or an installation using an unauthorized license is detected.

For details about setting up tasks with Task Scheduler, see 5.9 Setting the tasks that are registered in Task Scheduler in the Planning and Setup Guide.